Category: showing versus telling

Congratulations to all you NaNoWriMo winners! I’d love to hear about what you accomplished. Please post.

And I need title help, so I’m coming once again to you guys, who have saved me in the past. April, please take note. This time it’s for my book about the expulsion of the Jews from Spain in 1492. I don’t want to give much away, but I have to tell you a little. Cima is a girl in a family of wealthy Jews. Her grandfather, Joseph Corcia, is a philosopher, financier, and courtier to the monarchs and the nobility. He and she are very close, and he brings her with him when he travels, so she has a front-row seat on the growing antisemitism in Spain. Superstitions about Jews, the Inquisition, plague, attempts to convert her and her family all come into it–it was a terrible and exciting time. The reader meets King Ferdinand, Queen Isabella, and their daughter the infanta, Princess Isabella. My title was Long-Ago Cima, which my editor dislikes. Suggestions are more than welcome–please.

On September 17, 2018, Christie V Powell wrote, Here’s a question: how do you balance “showing” with being too subtle? I always hear things like “don’t name emotions” and “trust that your readers will figure it out.” But then I get comments on my stories saying that I implied too much. For instance, I have a girl climbing a cliff, and feedback (from experienced writers) was that I only implied that she might fall instead of stating the danger. In another scene, the main character says something like “her sister was gone across the sea.” A beta-reader commented that she doesn’t know how my MC feels about this. I assumed that this was already a sad thought so I didn’t need to say so.

Anyway, I’m working with their advice, but I was curious what you do to balance showing (especially emotion) with being too subtle/unclear?

Quite a discussion ensued.

Poppie: Showing physical manifestations of emotion, such as shaking hands, clenched teeth, or changes in breathing are great ways to show how a character is feeling, rather than saying “she was angry” or “she felt sad.” You can ‘show’ in times of danger or intense emotion, but I think it’s okay to mix in some ‘telling’ as well.

Let’s try this with the girl climbing the cliff:

“Her palms were slippery with sweat. Fear surged through her as she realized that if they got too sweaty she wouldn’t be able to keep her grip on the rocks. She would fall into the swirling rapids below…’no! Don’t think about that! Keep going… don’t look down… don’t panic…” she urged herself.

Kit Kat Kitty: With the “her sister was gone across the sea” example, I think it might be helpful to write in what she does when she thinks about it. If she looks down at her hands, readers might realize she’s sad. You could also do something along the lines of “Her sister was gone across the sea. I worried if she would ever come back. What if she didn’t?”

If a character is thinking, they’re likely to think about things they wouldn’t say, which can help with their inner thoughts and how they really feel. She likely won’t think “I’m sad,” but may think about sad things.

Raina: I saw an advice post on Pinterest that says “show emotion, tell feeling,,” with some more elaboration. (Here’s the post: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/457959855847579484/.) While I think that post is a little fuzzy about the difference between feelings and emotions, my interpretation is this: show the emotions/feelings that are significant to your character and unique to them, and tell the “basic” emotions/feelings that either aren’t extremely significant, or are so common that everybody can automatically relate without waxing poetic about it. For example, when it comes to climbing a cliff and potentially falling to their deaths, most people would probably be terrified. You can tell instead of show because given the situation, your reader can probably guess what she feels, and probably feels the same themselves. Correct me if I’m wrong, I’m guessing that her fear and/or the danger of falling doesn’t have lasting consequences on the plot or character development of the overarching story; it’s just there to provide tension for this specific scene. So while it’s always good to let readers know what’s going on with your character, this isn’t particularly “significant.”

A sister going across the sea, however, is probably an experience/emotion that’s unique to your character, and thus it might be worth it to show a little more of what she’s feeling instead of letting the reader figure it out. Because, though I can imagine a variety of emotions she might be feeling, I’ve never actually experienced anything like that, so the emotions I’m imagining might not be correct. Also, this sounds like pretty deep character development that will impact the whole story, so it’s worth it to spend some extra time showing her emotions in detail.

But in addition to finding the balance between subtlety and clarity, I think you also have to prioritize which one you value in any particular situation. For information that’s integral for the plot, I would definitely go with clarity. But if it’s not particularly pertinent information, and the reader won’t be too confused if they don’t get it, you can try to be more subtle and artistic in your descriptions. I disliked Ernest Hemingway’s short story “Hills Like White Elephants” because I couldn’t figure out what was going on (though my English teacher thought it was a brilliant piece of “iceberg” writing, so to each their own), whereas I absolutely adore Terry Pratchett’s many subtle but brilliant phrases in his books because they’re fairly low-stakes; if I figure it out, I’m delighted by his wit, but if I can’t, I’m not completely confused either, since they’re mainly just jokes or description, not important information.

Christie V Powell: Yeah, thank you. Here, though, my character isn’t terrified. She is (over)confident in her climbing abilities, and she’s doing it because she enjoys it. So I have to show that this is dangerous, but I have to stay inside her head and she’s not thinking about the danger. She’s feeling happy that she gets to do what she wants, and triumphant that she convinced her village to let her do it.

Sara: Maybe have her overconfidence show us that there’s real danger? She doesn’t have to realize it herself, but maybe when she’s thinking about how much fun this is, a lapse of focus for just a second sends a rock tumbling off the cliff. If there are those clues, we’ll understand that there is danger and that she’s oblivious to it.

I was in a children’s book writing workshop when I wrote Ella Enchanted, and the teacher read to the class the chapter in which Ella’s mother dies. The criticism I got was, Is she sad? And I thought, Duh. Her mother just died. Of course she’s sad! But then I had to show it, which I did, mostly through thoughts, drawing on memories of my thoughts and feelings when my mother had died a few years earlier.

My duh response wasn’t correct anyway. Years ago, I read a newspaper article in which the writer visited a nursing home and met an elderly woman whose husband had recently died. The writer expressed condolences, but the widow shook her head and said something like, “It’s wonderful!” Turns out the husband had been abusive and controlling. (If I remember right, her background had been traditional, and divorce hadn’t seemed to be an option.) The writer realized she had been making an unwarranted assumption–as we have to as well.

In the cliff climbing example, we can work the feeling in with showing, as Sara suggests. Say Christie V Powell’s character is named Mai. Someone else can say, “I’m terrified just thinking of climbing that. Aren’t you scared?” Mai can say, “Not me.” And can go on to thoughts that clue the reader in to her overconfidence. Maybe she’s never taken on a climb this challenging, but she knows she can do it; another, more experienced climber was injured in the attempt, but she still knows she can do it; snow fell overnight, but she’s climbed in snow before. We can use dialogue again. A dissenting voice from the village can say something like, “You’re a fool to climb that cliff, and they’re fools to let you.” This can trigger a torrent of more defensive thoughts in Mai.

We always have to balance being too subtle and hitting the reader over the head. My example above may fall into the second category, and the balance isn’t always easy to find. We should trust the reader’s intelligence on one hand, and on the other, everything we’re doing is lost if the reader doesn’t get it. Sometimes we find the sweet spot only in revision, when we can regard our pages from the distance a break provides.

Of course I don’t know what happens to the Mai character in Christie V Powell’s story, and I don’t know if the beta readers saw only the part before the climb or the climb itself as well. Sometimes with our subtle showing we ring a little bell, which the reader may not notice immediately. If Mai gets into trouble during the climb, then the reader will remember the subtle clues and appreciate them. If the beta readers haven’t read far enough, they won’t recognize our clever planting.

I’m with Poppie that some telling is fine. Mai can think back to her first climb and how scared she was (if she was) and contrast that with the present. She can notice how steady her hands are, how regular her heartbeat–and tell the reader that she feels confident of success.

As always, the elements we have to work with for showing are thoughts, physical manifestations of emotions, dialogue, and, in this case, setting.

One more thing: Not every criticism is accurate. Beta readers can be wrong–although if we hear the same concern from more than one person, we have to take it seriously.

Here are three prompts:

∙ A hurricane is predicted for Any Town on the coast of Any Sea. Dick and Jane and their little dog Spot live with their granddaughter Dorothy in a split-level ranch house a block from the beach. Any Town residents are advised to evacuate. Each of the human characters as well as Spot reacts differently to the threat. From the POV of an omniscient narrator, show how the four respond. With a minimum of telling, reveal their inner lives when faced with this threat. Write a scene or the whole story of the lead-up to the hurricane and the storm itself for this family.

∙ Some people (usually not writers, just saying) and characters are oblivious to their inner lives. Six of the seven dwarfs are delighted to have Snow White living with them. Jobin, one of the dwarfs, feels serious internal pressure to be happy, too. He doesn’t know either how great his need to conform is or how much he resents Snow White’s invasion of their happy home. It all comes to a head on the third day of her stay. Write what happens, showing both what he actually feels and what he thinks he feels–and how he acts.

∙ You may have to look at your Shakespeare for this. Your main character, Roger, is playing Romeo, and your other main character, June, is playing Juliet. Roger, in real life, is falling for June, while she can barely tolerate him. Write their rehearsal of a love scene.

On November 2, 2017, Christie V Powell wrote, In my WIP, adult fantasy, I have three point of view characters: two adults, and then a 15-year-old whose sections are all from her journal entries. I am having a lot of fun pulling from the style of my teenage journals, but I’m a little worried. Journals are almost all telling, and it might not appeal to adults. I’m keeping them short. I enjoy adding a different perspective than the other two characters, and I also like that I can use the voice to introduce every single person of her large family with “her brother” or whoever it is. Anyway, any advice?

For example, here’s her first journal entry:Hello! My name is Norma Filara. My dad just bought some new land, and when he was at the office he got this little notebook for me, and now I can keep a journal again! My last one got left behind when we moved. Actually, all our stuff got left behind when we moved. I guess I have to explain about that. My little brother Hamal was learning how to dream-jump, and he accidently jumped into some soldier guy’s house. We don’t know every thing that happened, but… he’s not alive. I don’t want to talk about that. It was freezing cold and we had to leave our house and everything, and Mom and little Orion got pneumonia, and… I don’t want to talk about that either.

Let’s move forward. We just came to a new city, called Grayton. My dad got a great offer on some land that no one else wanted. It’s perfectly good land too. He and my biggest brothers Altair and Leo are super busy now building buildings and digging wells. I’m supposed to be busy too. We all are, but Altair’s wife Ann is too busy watching the little ones so sometimes we middle ones get overlooked. I don’t mind. I would rather explore, and she can’t stop me!

Carley Anne wrote back, Ooo, sounds intriguing! I guess the style of writing (whether it is more telling, or more descriptive), would depend on the character of your fifteen year old, and what kind of a mood she’s in. Why is she writing? Is it just to remember a few facts, or capture a memory? Does she actually enjoy writing? (That would probably result in a more descriptive style.) I like her style of writing (reminds me of Anne Frank), but it almost feels like she could become more descriptive as she continues adding entries, and slowly becomes more “accustomed” to this journal.

I’d argue that journal entries by their nature are like dialogue, because the diarist is speaking to the reader. I call that showing. The reader is introduced to Norma’s character through the way she expresses herself. My impression of her is that she’s direct, enthusiastic, and emotional–not that she tells us she’s those things. I get the enthusiasm from the two exclamation points and her eagerness to journal. The directness is there in that she doesn’t beat about the bush, and the deep feelings are revealed in her reluctance to talk about the loss of her brother and the illnesses her family suffered.

That reluctance is an interesting choice in a journal, which won’t be read by anyone, which is the ideal place to explore pain–which suggests that Norma not only doesn’t want to discuss her troubles, she also doesn’t want to think about them.

That’s a lot of showing to pack into a short journal entry. Good job!

Yes, I suppose the reader is told that this is a world in which dream-jumping occurs, but telling is an inevitable part of dialogue, as in, “Don’t shake my hand. I have a cold.” I have a cold is telling. Don’t shake my hand is showing that the speaker is probably a considerate person.

And telling is woven in with showing in narration, too. In my opinion (please argue–with examples–if you disagree), extended pure showing is impossible.

The purpose of showing, in my opinion again, is to put the reader in the story. We supply the feelings, thoughts, nuances of character, the sensations (not just sight and sound, but also smell and touch) that make it real. Writing teachers urge us to show so we don’t forget these elements in our eagerness to relate events.

Telling makes the showing comprehensible. Without telling, the reader is lost, like an infant before language. The baby is primed to discover the telling in her world. The reader is primed, too.

Occasionally, pure telling works. I’ve mentioned this novel before: Miri, Who Charms by Joanne Greenberg (definitely high school and up). There’s almost no showing, and yet the story is compelling (and tragic). Maybe it would have been better if some showing had been worked in. I don’t know.

As for adult reader interest in a fifteen-year old’s journal, well, I’m an adult and I’d be interested. POV change adds variety, as do the form of journal entries. I could be interested if the whole story were told by a fifteen year old, too. It would depend on the voice and what the teen had to say. I think that falls into the category of worries we torment ourselves with when we write.

I’ve said this before: we should whisper our worries about readers into a lead canister and then drop the canister in a well. I say this because I’m guilty of it, too. My current worries are that no one will want to read about the expulsion of the Jews from Spain more than 500 years ago, and that the book (which no one will read) will be intolerably sad. These are just sticks for me to beat myself with. Maybe no one will read the book, but it’s still the book I want to write. And I assume that Christie V Powell wants to write that fifteen-year old’s journal entries.

What I just said applies to the projects of our hearts. Sometimes writers are commissioned to write a particular thing and being paid depends on writing that thing. Others of us write for our jobs. However, for the rest of us, readers are too unpredictable to worry about. Also, chasing the market is usually futile. It stays maddeningly ahead of us. The trend that was hot when we started is ice cold by the time we finish.

Here are four prompts:

∙ Write a journal entry for Tolkien’s Sauron. Can be an ordinary day in the life of the lord of evil. Or can be the morning of what he expects will be the final day for goodness.

∙ Write a journal entry for a character in a WIP whom you’d like to know better. Let his own words tell you about himself.

∙ Dream-jumping sounds fascinating. Write a scene in which a character dream-jumps for the first time. Mix showing and telling in the narration.

∙ A science fiction classic, The Stars My Destination by Alfred Bester, uses teleportation, called jaunting. The discovery of teleportation is described in the book, which is worth reading. I haven’t read it in decades. My guess is middle school and up, but check with a librarian. Write your own scene in which teleportation is either discovered or invented.

First off: my book tour is now posted here on my website. You canjust click on In Person and you’re there. I will be in or near five cities and after that locally in New York and Connecticut. I can hardly say how much I would like to meet you all. Sometimes I fantasize about a big party for all of us.

On November 11, 2016, Enchanted wrote, I taught myself to write from reading Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. In it, there’s a strong omniscient narrator who delivers the information as if from afar. Example: “He was a good-looking man of twenty-five years, well-educated, wealthy, with excellent manners, but he was still unmarried.” I really like it, but some of the writing manuals I’m reading discourage that kind of narrative. They say to show, not tell. Like, they would want me to SHOW that he’s educated by, say, showing him reading a philosophy book, or SHOW that he’s well-mannered by showing him in conversation. So, is writing like the classics bad because it tells instead of shows? Just curious.

Three writers chimed in.

Christie V Powell: I’d say it’s okay if you have a really interesting voice. It’s especially useful in first person, where the whole thing is in one character’s voice, so that even the most telling of paragraphs also reviews the characteristics of the narrator. It’s a bit harder in omniscient, but in that case the narrator is almost a part of the story too. Dickens or Austen are as much a part of the story as their characters, and they have an interesting voice to match that reveals a lot about who they are. It’s harder to pull off nowadays but certainly doable.

Writeforfun: Enchanted, that’s a fascinating question! I’ve always liked the way some books, especially older ones like Jane Austen’s and others, are written in such distinct styles. I know all authors will have their own style in some way or another, but I’ve always found it interesting how most modern books use the same basic “show, don’t tell” styles, as well as including approximately the same amount of descriptions, as opposed to books from different time periods.

On another note, in regards to style, J. M. Barrie’s might be one of my favorite distinct voices! Aside from when Gail wrote the Fairies books intentionally leaning toward his sort of style, I don’t think I’ve ever read anything written quite like it! You?

Emma G. C.: Yes, the classics do tend to tell more than show. In this instance, the telling is very straightforward and informative, which can actually be a good thing. If you don’t want to spend a lot of time describing some trivial information about a character and would rather TELL readers this information so you can SHOW this character’s actions, manner of speech, and what they look like, then I say it’s completely allowed. It might be a good idea to SHOW in the next sentence, maybe by describing the way his voice sounds or the way he is dressed. As long as you have a healthy mix of showing and telling, you’re good. Jane Austen still shows, even though she may tell more often. And honestly, most people don’t go around saying they would have preferred it if Jane Austen used more description or showed more often. No, they instead focus on how well the plot and characters are written. That’s why it’s a classic.

Writeforfun, I’m with you about Barrie! Every writer is unique, but he’s the uniquest–which the internet tells me is a word, and since it is, I think it was invented for Barrie. Thank you for recognizing that I chased after his voice and may have gotten it a little.

I don’t like books on writing issuing orders: show, don’t tell. Writing is complicated. Telling may work here, showing there. We writers have to be versatile to serve our stories.

Showing immerses the reader in the world of the story, provides the detail that makes it all real. I love to show! It’s thrilling to find the gesture or speech quirk or habit of thought that establishes a character, the object that captures a setting, the sensation that nails a moment.

But it’s impossible to only show. Telling applies to more than describing a character. It can compress time, as in, They argued for another fifteen minutes until Jenna stormed out. Marla collapsed on the couch and slept for twelve hours while her family tiptoed around her. If the reader already knows or doesn’t have to know what the argument was about, this telling is a great way to move the story forward into the next important scene. However, if the reader needs to hear the argument or to know anything else embedded in my sentences, showing is the way to go. For example, if the people in Marla’s family are generally incapable of being considerate, the reader will wonder why their behavior has changed. A dab of showing–or more telling–will be required.

I also love to tell. And sometimes it’s hard to tell which is which. In the beginning of The Two Princesses of Bamarre below, I’d argue that the lines of poetry are showing–even though the words are pure telling–because they aren’t relating the ongoing story; they’re artifacts of an earlier age. What follows the poetry is definitely telling:

Out of a land laid waste To a land untamed, Monster ridden, The lad Drualt led A ruined, rag-tag band. In his arms, tenderly, He carried Bruce, The child king, First ruler of Bamarre.

So begins Drualt, the epic poem of Bamarre’s greatest hero. No one knew whether its tales were true or were only inventions of a long-ago anonymous bard. We didn’t even know if a man named Drualt had ever lived.

It didn’t matter. He was Bamarre’s ideal. Drualt was strong and brave, and kindhearted and jolly too. He fought Bamarre’s monsters – the ogres, gryphons, specters, and dragons that still plague us – and he helped his sovereign found our kingdom. Today Bamarre needed a hero more than ever. The monsters were slaughtering hundreds of Bamarrians every year, and the Gray Death carried away even more.

I was no hero. The dearest wishes of my heart were for safety and tranquility. The world was a perilous place, wrong for the likes of me.

The last paragraph exemplifies a danger of telling. In it, I (through Addie) tell the reader what to think of her. Once I’ve done that, she has to stay fearful unless I put her through a process and she changes.

Our characters and our descriptions of them–what we tell about them and what we show–have to line up. If we say outright that a character is shy, for example, he needs to be shy. Sometimes this can result in characters who are less nuanced than they might otherwise be. As many of you know, I adore Jane Austen, and Pride and Prejudice is my favorite book ever. I actually like it when Austen tells me what to think. Still, her characters are a tad static. Mrs. Bennet for example is described as a very silly woman, and she stays that way, is never jolted for an instant into a moment of judiciousness. Mr. Darcy changes in the course of the novel–a little. The reader’s idea of him does shift, but fundamentally he remains the same: honorable, loyal, deliberate, grave, steadfast. However, if we avoid telling, we can give our characters a little more elbow room. They still have to be consistent and identifiable, but more surprises and more fluidity are possible. This is a more naturalistic approach to character.

So showing helps with character depth.

I went hunting for examples of old-fashioned telling and found this example, and it horrifies me. The excerpt below is from the first chapter of The Scarlet Letter (high school or middle school–I’m not sure), which I read decades ago. First we get telling and then showing mixed with telling in the dialogue that follows. I’ve condensed the excerpt a little–without changing the tone. I’m troubled by what seems to me to be woman-hating. The only thoughtful speech is given to the male speaker at the end. I don’t remember if Hester Prynne is the single good and complicated female in the book. Maybe one of you can say. It’s a great example of literature with an ax to grind, something I think we should avoid.

The age had not so much refinement, that any sense of impropriety restrained the wearers of petticoat and farthingale from stepping forth into the public ways, and wedging their not unsubstantial persons… into the throng nearest to the scaffold at an execution. Morally, as well as materially, there was a coarser fibre in those wives and maidens of old English birth and breeding than in their fair descendants, separated from them by a series of six or seven generations; for, throughout that chain of ancestry, every successive mother had transmitted to her child a fainter bloom, a more delicate and briefer beauty, and a slighter physical frame, if not character of less force and solidity than her own. The women who were now standing about the prison-door stood within less than half a century of the period when the man-like Elizabeth had been the not altogether unsuitable representative of the sex. They were her countrywomen: and the beef and ale of their native land, with a moral diet not a whit more refined, entered largely into their composition…. There was, moreover, a boldness and rotundity of speech among these matrons, as most of them seemed to be, that would startle us at the present day, whether in respect to its purport or its volume of tone.

“Goodwives,” said a hard-featured dame of fifty, “it would be greatly for the public behoof if we women, being of mature age and church-members in good repute, should have the handling of such malefactresses as this Hester Prynne. If the hussy stood up for judgment before us five, that are now here in a knot together, would she come off with such a sentence as the worshipful magistrates have awarded? Marry, I trow not.”

“People say,” said another, “that the Reverend Master Dimmesdale, her godly pastor, takes it very grievously to heart that such a scandal should have come upon his congregation.”

“The magistrates are God-fearing gentlemen, but merciful overmuch—that is a truth,” added a third autumnal matron. “At the very least, they should have put the brand of a hot iron on Hester Prynne’s forehead. Madame Hester would have winced at that, I warrant me. But she—the naughty baggage—little will she care what they put upon the bodice of her gown! Why, look you, she may cover it with a brooch, or such like heathenish adornment, and so walk the streets as brave as ever!”

“Ah, but,” interposed, more softly, a young wife, holding a child by the hand, “let her cover the mark as she will, the pang of it will be always in her heart.”

“What do we talk of marks and brands, whether on the bodice of her gown or the flesh of her forehead?” cried another female, the ugliest as well as the most pitiless of these self-constituted judges. “This woman has brought shame upon us all, and ought to die; is there not law for it? Truly there is, both in the Scripture and the statute-book. Then let the magistrates, who have made it of no effect, thank themselves if their own wives and daughters go astray.”

“Mercy on us, goodwife!” exclaimed a man in the crowd, “is there no virtue in woman, save what springs from a wholesome fear of the gallows? That is the hardest word yet!”

Such unkind descriptions of these women! But if you disagree with me or see it another way, please weigh in!

I also revisited Pride and Prejudice and found myself criticizing my beloved Austen for this line, which comes after Lady Catherine, in her heedless way, has been rude to Elizabeth:

Mr. Darcy looked a little ashamed of his aunt’s ill-breeding, and made no answer.

We’re getting deep into the weeds here, but if Jane Austen were my student, I would say, How does Darcy look when he looks a little ashamed? Does he blush? Roll his eyes? If yes, just say so. Or is it something with his eyebrows, his nose, his lips? Does he wring his hands? Hop three times on his right foot?

I’m not sure I have a larger point about the sentence–maybe that we have to watch out for vagueness when we’re telling.

I hope I’ve conveyed that I don’t come down on one side or the other. Telling and showing are both essential, and the more we write the more automatically our gear shifts will be.

Here are four prompts:

∙ Write the argument between Marla and Jenna. This is artificial, just for this prompt, but start the scene with a sentence or two describing the personality of each–telling the reader what to think. Move into showing their argument. If your showing changes what you told about them, revise the description.

∙ Write the scene with Marla’s family while she sleeps. Stick to telling.

∙ Write the scene with Marla’s family while she sleeps. Stick to showing.

∙ Creation myths, in my experience, are mostly telling. From reading Edith Hamilton’s Mythology, I understand that everything began with Chaos, which was shapeless and disorganized, until she (Chaos) gave birth to Night and Erebus (the depths where death is). Somehow, from the two of them, an egg is laid, from which hatches Love. Use mostly showing to write this creation myth or any other, or one you make up. Take the reader there.

First off, for anyone in my neck of the woods (lower upstate New York), I’ll be signing at the Chappaqua Children’s Book Festival from 10:00 to 4:00’ish (I sometimes leave a little early to catch my train) on September 24th, along with many other great kids’ book writers. Details are here on the website when you click on News and then on Appearances. If you can come, I’d love to see you, and, since I’ll be there all day, we’ll have time to chat.

On to the post. On May 26, 2016, Mary E. Norton wrote, My mother, who is my main beta reader, always tells me that when I write a story I always tell instead of show what is happening. The only thing is I don’t know how to show instead of tell. Can anyone help explain to me how I can achieve this?

Christie V Powell offered these ideas and examples: I think Gail described it as a camera that zooms in. If you’re telling, it’s zoomed out so you get a big panorama picture with few details. If you show, you’re zooming in so the details are prominent.

Tell: Tess climbed the tree and looked for danger.Show: Tess’s fingers grasped the rough bark as she heaved herself upward, ears alert for any hint of danger.

First two lines of my WIP:For Keita Sage, crossing the valley floor without detection was the easy part of the rescue. (tell)She had darted across the brush, her feet sure despite the predawn darkness, but now they trembled inside their awkward, bulky shoes. (show)

For me, portraying emotion is where you really want to be showing.

Jasper was afraid.

Jasper didn’t speak, but a strange rattling sound came from his direction. It took her a moment to realize what it was. The wooden feet of Jasper’s sofa were shaking against the floor. At last he choked out, “Why are you telling me? I can’t go in there.”

And I wrote, A terrific example. Just naming the feeling usually falls flat. I love how the emotion gets transmitted to the sofa.

In showing all the senses may get into the act. My camera lens comparison that Christie V Powell mentioned highlights the visual, but we can also bring in the auditory, as she does with the clattering sofa legs. Smell and touch may be involved, too. Christie V Powell uses touch in her example of the rough bark. She didn’t include smell–which is fine because we don’t want to follow a checklist–but Tess might also have picked up the earthy scent of the forest.

In addition to the sensory, we can also think about the temporal element, which Christie V Powell demonstrated (showed) in her examples. Please notice that her telling examples are shorter than her showing ones. So we can make another analogy. On a tape recorder, telling means pressing the fast-forward button.

And we need that button, which moves a narrative along. If we were to show everything, our stories would be slower than real time and our readers would slip into a coma. We can’t avoid all telling. Telling is baked into language. We are telling creatures. We just need to shift back and forth from one mode to the other.

So how do we move from the more instinctive telling method to the acquired showing way? And how do we know when we should?

One of the effects of showing is to draw our reader inside our character, to make him see what she sees, hear what she hears, etc. Let’s imagine Tess in the forest on the run from Robin Hood and his not-so-merry band, who are convinced she’s going to turn them in to the Sheriff of Nottingham–because lately they’ve been stealing from everyone and giving to themselves.

Often, when I’m writing a scene and I’m not sure about the environment, I use google images. I might google “forest floor” and noodle around. I might also look at forest images, especially old-growth forest, which Sherwood Forest probably would be. I might google “English songbirds” to discover what she might hear. The point is, I want to be inside Tess in that forest.

From my Tess story, I probably know what season it is and what time of day. I probably also know if Tess is a woodlands girl or if she’s spent her life in a castle and a village, and whether or not she’s following a road or a path.

Once I’m prepared and maybe have jotted down a few notes I can start writing.

If Tess is inexperienced in the woods, that can up the ante. She takes a step. The dead leaves are deafening, sound like they’re shouting in dry voices, “Here I am!” She’s listening to her own noise and trying also to hear the sound of hooves or a wild boar crashing through the underbrush, homing in on the scent of her fear.

We’ve covered sound and smell. What does she see? It may be noon, but the forest canopy may be so dense that the light is murky. We may describe from our google images, or we may go into an actual forest if one is nearby. If it’s day she can probably see enough to make her way, but there may be no distance vision. She may imagine the worst lying straight ahead.

If we want to introduce touch as well, Christie V Powell mentioned the rough feel of the bark. She can knock against a tree. We can make her trip on a tree root and encounter the forest floor up close and personal.

We can–should–include her thoughts as part of our showing. She may be nervously narrating everything she’s doing, as in, Now I step gingerly but sound like an elephant. Now I broadcast exactly where I am. Now my heart rises and catapults out of my mouth. Or she may be bargaining frantically. If I survive I will never say a mean word to anyone. I won’t complain. Or something more positive, like, Mother says I’m good in a pinch. Father tells me I’m all determination.

And we can show the physical side of emotions as Christie V Powell does with the couch legs.

In our first draft of a scene in showing, we may write more than we need, but that’s okay. We just snip here and there when we revise.

So that’s the how. Slow down, inhabit our characters, and write the 3-D version, plus sense- and smell-a-rama. And taste, if taste comes into it.

Now for when to show. Christie V Powell says at moments of heightened emotion, and I agree. Also, when important plot moments are happening. If our main characters are robbing a bank, we can’t skip much, which means showing.

Here are some other times:

To heighten tension. The scene in the forest is nerve-racking because of showing.

To reveal relationships. For example, dialogue is showing, although characters may tell each other things.

To reveal character. In our showing of Tess in the forest, we convey more about her. Does she plow ahead or inch along? Is her throat dry? Does she stop to drink from her canteen? Or does she fail to think about dehydration. Did she forget to fill her canteen?

Showing can make us aware of the gaps in our plotting. When we show, we can’t jump over the parts that don’t really work. It keeps us honest.

But telling is a part of creating a story, too. So, when do we tell?

It gets confusing, because telling is in everything. Let’s take three words in one of Christie V Powell’s examples of showing: Jasper didn’t speak. Well, I’d argue that that’s a moment of telling. I guess if we were going to show it we might say, No sound issued from Jasper’s throat, which seems unnecessarily long to me. So maybe it’s more accurate to compare predominantly showing versus predominantly telling.

So when should we mostly tell?

When we want to cover ground quickly. Maybe we want to summarize events that the reader needs to know, but that don’t hold a lot of drama. Or maybe we want to move time along. We have a stretch that has to be accounted for during which not much significant happens, so we may write something like, Tess was on the alert, but three weeks passed in the village of Sherwood without a single new theft.

When we want to provide background economically, because telling is economic. Maybe Tess’s childhood friend arrives in Sherwood village and we want the reader to know a little about their mutual history but we don’t want to go into a full, showing flashback. We might just write, It was Fiona who taught Tess to never underestimate an enemy.

When we want to comment on the action, as in this famous beginning of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice: It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife. A bold statement like this is less common in contemporary novels, but we can still use telling to guide the reader. I do at the beginning of Ella Enchanted with That fool of a fairy Lucinda did not mean to lay a curse on me. By calling Lucinda a fool I influence the reader’s perspective. Notice that commentary can be delivered by a first-person voice as well as an omniscient narrator.

These are the uses I can think of, but there may be more, which I encourage you to post for everyone to add to the list.

Here are four prompts. When you show, remember to slow down and to include sensory details:

∙ Use mostly showing to write Tess’s scene in the woods, trying to evade Robin Hood.

∙ Use telling to inform the reader of Tess’s initial awareness of Robin Hood.

∙ Switch to mostly showing and rewrite that first awareness as a scene.

∙ Take Austen’s first sentence and make it into an entire scene written in mostly showing. Demonstrate to the reader what Austen merely (and elegantly) declares–that every mother with at least one daughter and every busybody starts matchmaking the moment a wealthy bachelor shows up.

Have fun, and save what you write!

Also, this came in to the last post from Bethany a few hours ago, and I’d hate for it to get lost:

ATTENTION!!! PLEASE GIVE FEEDBACK!!! Thank you.
Anyone, but specifically Gail: I am writing my research paper on the purpose of fiction. Please tell me your opinions. What is the purpose of fiction? Is it to entertain? Is educating important? Do you think reading about fictional characters can change us and make us better people?
Thanks so much!

I wrote, ATTENTION BACK! When is your paper due?

And Christie V Powell wrote, How much time do you have? You might consider reading “The Seven Basic Plots” by Christopher Booker, which addresses these questions. However, it’s huge. It took me weeks to read, and I rarely take more than a day to read a book.

Short answers: Yes, it entertains. Education can be important, but can’t be too blatant. Novels ask questions, especially big moral/theme questions, but leave the reader to answer them on their own. Yes, I think there are scientific studies that say that reading makes people more empathetic because it helps us see the world through someone else’s eyes.